Traumatic Writing In Good Morning,Midnight From The Perspective Of Spatial Narrative

Cathy Caruth points out the term “trauma theory” in his masterpiece Unclaimed Experience: Trauma,Narrative and History in 1996.Now,it is generally considered that trauma is an “extraordinary,invasive and shattering” experience.JeanRhys(1890-1979)is a Caribbean-born English writer.In 1939,she published the short novel Good Morning,Midnight,which is a novel with distinct spatial features.Jean Rhys constructed the story in Paris,and enriched the city and its spatial structures with cultural and spiritual traumas.This paper takes Good Morning,Midnight as the research text and explores the traumatic writing in the novel,based on the spatial theory proposed by Gabriel Zoran in his paper Towards a Theory of Space in Narrative.Adopting Gabriel Zoran's model of narrative space as theoretical framework,this paper analyzes the role of spatial narrative in the traumatic writing of the novel from three levels: topographical structure,chronotopic structure and textual structure.This paper first analyzes the symptoms of trauma as Sasha wanders from London to Paris and from memories to reality,and then explores the positive significance of narrative space to the theme of trauma.The topographical structures as metaphors of trauma externalize the inner trauma of the characters,which embodies the writer's efforts to concern about the inner hearts of the marginal characters by literary means.The chronotopic structure as a representation of the different directions of the novel's plot highlights the importance of reflection and action during trauma therapy.The selectivity of language,the linearity of the text and the perspectival structure as effective techniques promote the theme of the novel,making it in the grand background of the urban fear and spiritual crisis shared by the others in the process of modernization and urbanization,and also enhance the aesthetic value of traumatic writing.In addition,this paper further explores the causes of individual trauma in Sasha and collective trauma of marginalized others represented by Sasha,in order to find ways to alleviate the trauma.On the one hand,from the cultural level,Sasha's trauma embodies the victim of colonialism,and on the other hand,the identity crisis has caused her to fall into madness.The text reflects the efforts of Rhys to seek trauma treatment through spatial narrative.Sasha tried to establish contact with the society in order to get out of the trauma,and also gained a sense of existence in the world by facing trauma.By analyzing the significance of spatial narrative on the traumatic theme in Good Morning,Midnight,interpreting the causes of traumatic memories in the text and exploring ways to alleviate trauma,this paper promotes us to understand the conflicts between local culture and urban culture in the process of modernization,which is similar to the conflicts in Rhys' s novel,and then to pay attention to the feelings of vulnerable groups in the city and to be aware of the cultural identity crisis of the other.